Working in Kigali

So, I'm still here in the office in Kigali. I work during the day, go to the gym or run after work, and go out on weekends. I've actually forced myself to get out and meet people in Kigali. Not normally something I do, but its either that or sit at home. I've met some cool Rwandans and a few cool ex-pats.

In the office, I'm working on creating a training manual for small scale coffee farmers in Rwanda. Its a pretty basic thing, lots of pictures, translated into Kinyarwanda. Its meant as a general guide and something that can be used by people with little education. I think its a good idea, but a touch boring. Its like writing a term paper.

Today, I talked with the regional head of T-S. I asked him, "so, do you have a vision for what exactly my role is here?" He told me that I'm going to be trying to implement the coffee agronomy program in Tanzania, Kenya and Ethiopia, as soon as we work out the kinks in Rwanda. He talked about travelling a lot. So, that sounds sweet. We'll see.

Going to Nairobi on Friday to visit friends. 5 AM flight, 3 AM check in. 1 hour flight.

Here's a few pics of Kigali.

PS - I'd take more pictures, but its hard from the back of a motorcycle taxi. Stay tuned...

I'll name you if you survive this

So here's how the T-S coffee program works. We find a cooperative of farmers growing coffee that does not currently use a wet mill. We introduce ourselves and say, we can help you - if you want. If the cooperative decides to accept T-S help, we sell them a coffee wet mill for $10,000. They then pay that loan back over 3 years. Upon using the coffee wet mill for a year, the cooperative immediately starts to see profits increase.

Year 2 we introduce the agronomy program (what I do). The agronomy program shows the farmers - ok, now your profits have increased because you used a wet mill. Now, let us show you how you can increase your profits yet again by learning proper farming techniques - pest management, mulching, cover crops, pruning, rejuvenation, etc. Its pretty much free education which I think is certainly sustainable. Plus, they own the wet mill and thus own the project, so we can eventually take a step back and let them take over.

Farmers are paid twice by the cooperative. The first time - when they harvest their coffee and bring it to the wet mill, the coop pays them by the kilo for the cherry. The second time - at the end of the season, after the coop has found a buyer (Starbucks, Peet's, Bourbon (Rwanda), etc.) they then share the additional profits with the coop members based on their contribution to the overall harvest.

I heard this story at our Monday morning meeting. A coop in the East near Lake Kivu killed its expected profits (already much higher than pre-wet mill) this year by more than 50%. Awesome. So a large group of people in the coop decided to buy health insurance. This is the first time I've actually ever heard of rural farmers in East Africa buying health insurance. So, a few weeks later, the daughter of one of the members gets sick with Malaria and has to go to the hospital. It turns out she would have died without getting treatment, and wouldn't have received treatment without health insurance.

So, there you go. Working on increasing coffee profits, sometimes you forget how you really are affecting the country and people. The organization is having a positive impact and I'm glad to be a part of something like this.

So here's the twist - the girl who went to the hospital - her name roughly translated to English is, "I'll name you if you survive this." Apparently its a name Mother's give to children born during a rough delivery/pregnancy. The girl is 14 years old. She was born in April, 1994.

In April of 1994, the government of Rwanda called on everyone in the Hutu majority to kill everyone in the Tutsi minority. Over the next three months 800,000 Tutsis were murdered. This girl and her mother somehow survived the genocide and are now successfully and profitably running a small scale coffee plantation in Eastern Rwanda.

A week in Kigali

This week I've been in Kigali, doing work in the office for the most part.

The things I've worked on this week:

1. Read the entire project proposal which has been funded by the Bill G. foundation. Its over 200 pages. I did this just to familiarize myself with the project I'll be working on.

2. Created a few Excel spreadsheets and graphs showing project milestones for the next 5 years.

3. Created a template for Tanzania, Ethiopia and Kenya on the Agronomy Implementation Strategy. Rwanda is like the pilot program. Once we figure this thing out, we scale up and start the program (season-sensitive) in the other countries.

4. On Thursday I went with Supa, one of the Rwandan Business Advisors out to one of our cooperatives to check on their progress.

Before the recent funding, T-S had set up wet mills in about 10 different locations throughout Rwanda. A wet mill is a way of getting the coffee bean out of the berry. Using a wet mill (as opposed to drying in the sun) enables higher quality coffee beans. The new funding will enable T-S to build new wet mills as well as implement an Agronomy (science of crop production) education program.

It is important to note, however, that T-S does not contribute money towards the construction of the wet mills. This is good. This is sustainable. T-S finds farmer cooperatives throughout Rwanda who have potential - good coffee crops, adequate water supplies, correct elevation necessary for coffee to thrive, etc. If these cooperatives do not currently have a wet mill, T-S educates communities on the benefits of these mills. If the community decides to proceed with the wet mill construction, T-S hooks them up with local financing. I'm still trying to figure out who this is (bank, loan shark?) - but it works like a loan and I believe its normally about $10,000 paid over 3 years. Just like microfinance.

So, now the farmers have a wet mill and immediately they are able to get a higher yield from their existing crop. This eliminates expensive middle men, and the co-ops sell directly to international coffee companies like Starbucks. In fact, some of the coffee from one of the co-ops we work with last week made a deal with Peet's Coffee - who apparently has higher standards for coffee than Starbucks. After the implementation of this wet mill, this one cooperative saw an increase of 70% in profits from last year. Each co-op has approximately 200-300 members, so you can see how powerful this can be.

The next step, now that the farmers have seen how great the wet mill works - is agronomy training. So, now T-S teaches the farmers exactly the best way to grow coffee - to get the highest quality and quantity yield out of your land. Plus, a stipulation of the G grant is that everything must be grown environmentally sustainable. So, although we're teaching them to increase the burden on their land, its not directly environmentally harmful. Pretty sweet.

Coffee Wet Mill and Drying Station

Coffee Wet Mill aka Lawnmower

Coffee drying after going through wet mill

Finally settling in to Kigali

After a week "in the field," I came back to Kigali on Friday. Finally, I was able to unpack my bags. I left the States last Tuesday August 26th and lived out of a bag for a week and a half.

Friday night I went out with my roommates in Kigali. We first went to a place called Republica - chilled out bar and restaurant, then to a dance club called Cadillac. Good times. Even still at these places, Rwanda is easier than Nairobi.

Saturday afternoon I went into town to explore a bit. I walked out of my house, and grabbed a moto-taxi. These things are pretty legit here - guys on motorcycles with extra helmets for passengers. It cost me about 60 cents U.S. to get a 5 minute ride to the nearest taxi place - the MTN center (MTN is the local phone and internet provider). I then bargained with a taxi driver to take me downtown. I always ask before I speak to people, "Unaongea Kiswahili?" (Do you speak Swahili?) Its worked out really well for me so far - I've only met a few Rwandans in Kigali who don't speak Swahili, even if its choppy. Its so much easier bargaining and telling people where I want to go in Swahili than English, plus I automatically get a better price since they then don't think I'm a tourist.

I walked around downtown a bit, nothing really needed to purchase. I ended up buying a phone, some coffee and rice krispies. Even the city center is extremely hilly here. I wanted to get something to eat, but all the stores downtown were up-scale. I wanted to try some real Rwandan staple foods.


On the cab ride back, I told the driver to drop me off shortly before my house because I thought I saw a tiny restaurant near my neighborhood. When I arrived at the place, I sat down amongst just a few flys (always a good sign for eating local) and ordered a beef brochette and matokie (fried banana). It ended up costing me 400 Francs, or about 80 cents U.S. And, it was delicious. I don't know what spices they used, but the food was awesome. I think I'm going to frequent that place.

Genocide thoughts

Riding in the van the other day, a Rwandan named Emmanuel (everyone has french names over here) asked me how many brothers and sisters I had. I told him I had 2 sisters and he told me that he was from a family of 6 children. But he said he lost his parents and one sibling in the genocide.

A woman accross from him said that she is the only one left in her family.

Another woman had to be aken to the hospital for "trauma," earlier in the week. Apparently, she was up all night thinking about her family and the genocide and had to be taken to the hospital. She was actually put on a saline drip.

She returned the next day and started to learn about coffee again.

I've seen a few men in town missing limbs.

Unfathomable.

Its actually pretty amazing this country though. Its clean, has great roads, the people seem to be great, and the country seems to be on its way up. Over the last decade, its been one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Maybe they've all banded together - knowing they started at the absolute bottom - to create something good. Of all people, Rwandans know the depths of human anger and hatred. Maybe they don't ever want to see something like that happen again; maybe they want to leave the place better for their children.

When the woman went to the hospital the other day, many different people from the class took turns visiting her in the hospital - people she had never met before this week. When she came back to class, it seemed like everyone went out of their way to make sure she was ok. They've all been through it. Maybe the whole country is one big support group for one of the worst tragedies in human history.

I was told there are no more Hutus and Tutsis, only Rwandans.

T-S

From now on, the organization I work for will be referred to as T-S. Apparently, these blogs are very searchable. My boss today actually told me about someone who worked for T-S in the past who had a blog and got in trouble for some things she had said in it. Good to know.

Nice shades

Agronomy Training in Butare Part 2

This week we've been in a town called Butare, in Southern Rwanda. I was picked up by my boss on Monday morning and driven down here. The whole week we've been conducting a training session on proper techniques to grow coffee to maximize yield and therefore increase incomes at the rural level. Our audience (about 17 people) are elected representatives from co-operatives in Southern Rwanda.

So, basically the idea is - we teach these people the basics of getting the most out of your coffee crop - pruning, mulching, fertilizing, pest management, erosion, shading techniques, etc. and then they go and disseminate the information they gained to all the people in their co-ops. The purpose is to spread knowledge on coffee growing techniques to as many people as possible, as fast as possible. Higher yields, higher incomes. From my perspective thus far, it seems like a good plan. Education is always sustainable.

This afternoon, I was lucky enough to ride in one of the vehicles with half the class (I've been riding in my boss' car up to this point) on our way to a field trip. There were about 7 women (mostly mamas) in the car, myself and a couple guys - all Rwandan except me. Up until this time I had been riding mostly with my boss. The people started opening up to me. It was cool. One guy spoke a little English and asked me to introduce myself. I asked him if anyone knew Swahili and he said they knew a little. So, I introduced myself and told them all where I was from. We joked around and I think they gained respect for me because I could at least speak an African language and was hanging out with them. By the end of the ride, everyone was singing and clapping - praying that "Philip sets the exam easy tomorrow." (I told them I was writing the exam for them which they take tomorrow - and yes, its easy) Everyone was laughing and singing, it was awesome.

Often times Wazungu (white people) are seen as different to Africans. Especially in this setting - they can be seen as a teacher would be seen by students. So, the students hang out with each other and act differently when around the teachers. I don't think development works like that. I think you can have a much greater effect when people see you as one of them. You can understand them a little more, and they can understand you a little more.

Agronomy Training in Butare Part 1

We left Monday morning at 6:30 AM from Kigali to Butare. No problem for me as I had been up since 4:30 - still jet lagged.

We headed out for the drive to Kigali in one of the T-S pickup trucks. Rwanda is so orderly and clean compared to Kenya. Apparently, they have outlawed plastic bags here - a huge source of trash in Kenya. The streets look like they were paved last week and theres no traffic. They even have stop lights here and people pay attention to them. Apparently, Rwandans practice a thing called Muganda. On the last Saturday of each month, it is illegal to drive from 8 AM to 12 PM. At this time, instead people are encouraged to clean up there properties and surroundings. It makes a big difference. Also, something I started to notice is that no one was asking me for money, or even staring at my whiteness. Another big annoyance in Kenya.

The drive to Butare was beautiful. Rwanda is very green, and extremely hilly. Along the way we passed at least 1 genocide memorial. Later we drove along the edge of a cliff. In the valley below, my boss told me that the people working in the fields were all prisoners. She said the ones in orange were convicted genocide murderers, and the ones in pink had not seen trial yet.
The country is beautiful, clean and the people are nice, yet the word genocide is never far from a foreigners lips when the word Rwanda comes up.

Monday and Tuesday we started the coffee agronomy trainings. I am basically just helping out my boss, even though I know nothing about coffee. In fact, she had to point out to me on the way to Butare what a coffee tree even looked like. I have learned a lot in the past 2 days and should be an expert by the time this 6 months is over. This afternoon we went to the field and practiced some of the techniques we had learned on real coffee trees such as pruning, fertilizing and rejuvenating. The goal of these trainings is to disseminate coffee agronomy expertise to local farmers.

Coffee tree on a plantation at a Rwandan Government Research Station (ISAR)

Learning how to rejuvenate a coffee tree

Arrival in Kigali

The flight from Nairobi was short - 1 1/2 hours. Pretty cool looking out the window while we flew over the Serengetti, Lake Victoria, and approached Rwanda - the land of a thousand hills.

I bumbled around in customs, trying to figure out my Visa stuff. As an American, it turns out I don't need a Visa and don't have to pay anything. But, no cool stickers for the passport. Only a small stamp which the guy squeezed in on a page with other countries on it anyway.

After picking up my bags, I found a guy with a piece of paper with my name on it. I changed $100 (about 55,000 Rwanda Francs) and got in the car with him. He spoke Swahili which was nice, so we could communicate that way. All Rwandans speak Kinyarwanda and French. Some can speak English, and some can speak Swahili. We went to the T-S office and I met my boss. She told me to continue on with the cab driver who would be taking me to the VolCon "house." I felt like this is the "Real World."

I arrived at the house and no one was there. The place is sweet. I can't believe its Africa. The whole community is a bunch of fenced in houses with small yards. The interior of the house was also a shock - compared to how I lived in Peace Corps. Its a 3 bedroom house, gated with a guard, with 2 showers, wireless internet, marble flooring and carpet. Its amazing.

I crashed out for a few hours (I was still a bit jet lagged). When I woke up, I met one of my room mates, who is actually leaving September 12. She had made dinner and asked me if I wanted any, so of course I accepted. We talked a bit about me, her, T-S, Rwanda, etc. She works for Bain consulting and is a Harvard grad. She also told me that another of my room mates, C-C is also a Harvard grad and worked for McKinsey. They both work in Kigali and don't travel much for work.

Later, I spoke to my boss. My boss was specifically looking for a former Peace Corps Volunteer because she thought PCV's could handle Africa/Rwanda better than most. According to the T-S website, and my own observations, VolCons typically are people working for the big consulting firms - Bain, McKinsey, Booz Allen, who decide to take a few months off from their careers to go do something "socially responsible" and adventurous in Africa.

Tomorrow morning, I head out to Butare, about 2 1/2 hours South of Kigali. T-S will be conducting trainings on proper coffee production for a class of about 17 farmer co-operatives. I'm going with my boss and she's picking me up at 6:30. She's already told me that I'll be travelling a lot more than the other VolCon's, which is cool with me.

Picture 1: My neighborhood and street

Picture 2: My house